Reasons This African American Does Not Celebrate Kwanzaa

I never even heard about Kwanzaa till college. Students in my African American heritage group were going on and on about it. (My belonging to an African American heritage group is a different story altogether, but it is the only one I was invited into.) I have to admit I was curious about this African American Christmas, so I looked into it. Finding out that is was created just two short years before my birth, did not impress me. The late 60's were some very contentious years racially, and I did not want to identify with that any more than I wanted to continue to identify with my African American heritage group on that college campus. Over the years, as I have found my identity, both racially and individually, I have never found a reason to identify with or to celebrate Kwanzaa. Here are my reasons that this African American answer to Christmas does not leave me feeling very festive.

It is divisive. Like the African American Heritage group I belonged to that year, who said horrible things about non-ethic people, and who had a problem with me socializing with students who did not look like me, Kwanzaa was created specifically to "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society." source It appears to be anti-white and does not seek to educate or include other races, but to exclude them.

I have little to no respect for the founder of Kwanzaa. Before I could even begin to embrace this holiday, I had to find out more about where it came from. I learned that he founded a Black nationalist organization which was a rival to the Black Panther Party. His aim was to root African Americans in African Culture. The celebration of Kwanzaa came from that desire. Furthermore, Mr. Karanga was convicted of felony assault for torturing two women, who he claimed had tried to kill him. His group was also involved in a shootout on the UCLA campus during a heated meeting with the Black Panthers.

Kwanzaa was not created from an educated viewpoint. It has very loose connections with Africa. First, Kwanzaa is a Swahili word which is an East African language. Most American slaves were west African. Therefore the sense of heritage is false as East and West Africans have little in common. Rituals involving corn are quite strange and corn is not an African crop. Kwanzaa over-romanticizes a spirit of brotherhood which does not exist in Africa, and so a holiday that calls us back to our roots can be distasteful to many black Americans. Furthermore it is a harvest celebration, and nowhere in the world is a harvest celebration held in the middle of the winter. Perhaps it should have been an alternative to Halloween.

Kwanzaa is strangely similar to Hannukah. Hannukka is an 8 day Jewish holiday. Kwanza is a 7 day celebration of African Heritage. Both celebration include a daily candle lighting ceremony. Daily gifts are given in each celebration.

I just prefer Christmas. I am not talking about the Santa Clause, commercialized version of Christmas either. I prefer to celebrate the birth of Christ, which to me supersedes and overrides any other holiday at that time of year.